Except for, you know, the economists who penned the study that is the topic of this thread, along with plenty of others. On top of which, whenever someone spouts this falsehood, invariably it's economists who are looking at very narrow definitions of free trade, or very narrow definitions of "creating additional wealth". Is free trade good if the only gains in wealth go to a few people while most workers lose their jobs? Maybe the GDP increased, but for your average person it wasn't good.

The study does not say that the conclusion is peculiar to China, just that not all trade agreements are in aggregate harmful. Yes, China benefitted, but if it takes a population to be at starving level poverty to benefit from free trade, then I think your average American would say "no thanks".

Investment is not the same thing as employment. Mexicans may invest in American based companies, but those companies can outsource every last one of their employees if they so desire. Not to mention he says himself I realize that 5 of 21 years is too small a portion of time from which to draw any conclusions. Conservative estimates of job losses from NAFTA are in the realm of at least 700,000. It's pretty obvious that job losses are part of the deal when the government created the NAFTA-Transitional Adjustment Assistance Program to help people deal with losing their jobs as result of NAFTA!

There are many regulations in China. Sure there's more corruption there than here, but you seem to be advocating for America to become a more corrupt environment to improve America's "ability to pivot". Do you really think the brown paper bag economy is the way to go?

You see often enough companies hiring H1-B's, have their American equivalents train them, and then fire the American workers.

As for why this study didn't focus on the benefits - maybe because there weren't any? Or maybe it's because the benefits mostly went to the executives of large multinational corporations who are lobbying for these deals?

Also, what evidence do you have that trade with Chinese will improve the welfare of those around you?

The idea that without free trade with China only the 1% would be able to afford smartphones is total nonsense.

Also, the idea that China has no regulation on business is ridiculous. Obviously you've never worked there!

Don't buy into the HFT "adding liquidity" myth.

Simplifying the tax system and increasing the top marginal tax rates back to something closer to where they were 40 years ago is preferable in my opinion.

Even the landing of the first stage was mostly based on NASA research. Which by the way, NASA had achieved long ago.

SpaceX innovated with their cost cutting, and maybe now their manufacturing processes, and by being lucky by benefitting from a period of cost cutting by NASA whereby they could hire a bunch of NASA engineers/scientists.

Sure, you're right that nothing is set in stone, and you could have a country that has low inequality but it's still a terrible place to live by other metrics, but this is useless hypothesizing and speculation. What evidence do you have to support the statement that "An extreme progressive tax plus startups will STILL increase inequality. Not decrease." Seems to me, in the years when the top marginal tax rates were higher, those were some of the years with the least income inequality in American history.

Why not look at what people who study our current economies are saying instead of speculating?

From the IMF:

"We find that increasing the income share of the poor and the middle class actually increases growth while a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth—that is, when the rich get richer, benefits do not trickle down."

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42986....

They work at a little organization called the International Monetary Fund, and they conclude:

"We find that increasing the income share of the poor and the middle class actually increases growth while a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth—that is, when the rich get richer, benefits do not trickle down."

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42986....

http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2015/10/the-liq...

Even Ben Bernanke says we should have jailed banking executives after 2008.

In case you're not being purposefully obtuse, you can watch about how the reams of evidence of criminal behavior (you know, of actual written-down crimes) was ignored by the justice department (you know, the same agency that is pursuing this case), via PBS Frontline: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/untouchables/

Frontline, was able to find direct evidence of executive criminality with just a cursory investigation (with no power of subpoena). The excuses coming out of the justice department's mouthpiece were so laughable, that he resigned the day after the piece went to air.

There's a two-tier system in place here, and crimes like defacing a website causing a paltry amount of damage, although real, should be the crimes the justice department ignores if they're not able to apply justice to all crimes fairly and evenly.